Thursday, August 3, 2017

Staunton, August 3 – Sixty ethnic
Tuvin professional soldiers clashed with about 100 ethnic Russian professional
soldiers at a sergeants training academy in Yelan in Sverdlovsk oblast earlier
this week. The fighting turned violent and 14 of the soldiers remain hospitalized,
according to regional news agencies (ura.news/news/1052299414).

According to anonymous inside
sources, “three months ago approximately 60 contract soldiers arrived from Tuva
to take courses” so that they could be promoted. On the night before
graduation, they purchased alcohol to celebrate but “having gotten drunk, they
recalled” the hostility and mistreatment they had encountered from the ethnic Russian
soldiers.

Armed with knives and clubs, they
threw themselves on the Russians, wounding 13 soldiers and one officer. An
investigation has begun, and the defense ministry is supposedly flying in from
Moscow. But officials have gone out of their say to say that no guns were used
in the clash (nakanune.ru/news/2017/8/3/22478334/).

On
the one hand, many may be tempted to dismiss this as the result of alcohol at a
time of graduation ceremonies; but on the other, this event may be far more
serious than the usual incidents of “dedovshchina” that are routinely reported
which involve what the Russians calls “non-standard behavior” by one group of
soldiers against others, usually more junior draftees.

There
are at least three reasons for the conclusion, one that will be most worrisome
to Russian commanders. First, these were all professional soldiers, people who
had been screened for longterm service as sergeants in the Russian army. If
they are so deeply split ethnically as to come to blow, unit cohesion below
them is likely to be even more problematic.

Second,
the relative size of the two components – 60 Tuvins to 100 ethnic Russians –
reflects the demographic decline of the Russian nation and the fact that Moscow
is increasingly forced to draft or recruit as professionals ever more
non-Russians who continue to grow at a more rapid rate than do the Russians.

And
third, the fact that it was the Tuvans in this case is likely to be worrisome
not only because Russian commanders have typically viewed the Tuvans as more
loyal and obedient than the North Caucasians whom it still does not draft
heavily or promote but have chosen to promote them.

If Moscow can no
longer count on non-Russian nations like the Tuvins, it can’t count on almost
anyone other than ethnic Russians. There will thus be fallout from this clash,
but it remains to be seen how much of it will be reported.